


In the Graveyard Doing Handstands

by rubblerousing



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-11
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 01:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubblerousing/pseuds/rubblerousing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris is mugged in New York the night before he and Darren are supposed to film the break up scene for season four. He enlists Darren's help to keep this fact a secret. Then angst and fluff, but mostly angst, introduce themselves. Replete with flashbacks of all the most important parts of their relationship before that night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**New York**

_please please please come get me_

Darren’s phone vibrated in his back pocket for about the fourth time. The pretty girl across the table was in mid-sentence, so it wasn’t unreasonable for Darren to hope she didn’t notice the noise, but she stopped. “You can get that, you know. I don’t care.”

Darren shook his head and pulled out his phone. “I’m just going to turn it off. I should have turned it off before I got here.” His voice faded toward the end of his apology, as he read the tiny words on the screen, and saw who they were from, and wondered what it meant and what he was actually supposed to do about it.

“No, just answer it,” she smiled. “I’m going to the restroom anyway. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Darren pressed his lips together. When she was gone he replied to the text, _can’t, i’m on a date._

He waited, but no response came. A minute later he sent, _are you okay?_

Nothing. He sighed. The waitress came to refill his wine glass and smiled at him, but he was too nervous to smile back. He had a weird feeling, a mixture of guilt and impending doom. He practically had a flashback play out in his head, remembering the dozen times he had told this person he would always be there for him. He usually said it as a joke, but still, he had said it. He picked up his phone again and sent, _where are you?_

Immediately a response came with an address.

He stood as his date returned. “You don’t have to stand when I get up,” she smiled. “And you don’t have to ignore your phone. I’m sufficiently charmed, don’t worry.”

“I have to go, actually,” Darren said quickly, getting it all out before he could change his mind.

Her smile faded. “Oh.” She looked down at her blue dress, like maybe it had something to do with it.

“It’s not anything you did,” Darren assured her. “I just have a friend in a crisis, I think. We’re not that familiar with New York, maybe he got lost and fell into the Hudson river, or something.”

She threw her napkin on the table. “Fine.”

“I... I could come back. I don’t know how long it’ll take.”

“When?” she asked, unsure. “I don’t want to wait here all night by myself.”

“I don’t know,” Darren said. “Never mind, I’ll call you in the morning and take you to breakfast.”

She considered a moment, and finally said, “Okay.”

“I’m really sorry,” Darren said, and threw some cash on the table. “I promise I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She nodded, obviously disappointed.

He wanted to stay and apologize a few hundred more times, because he genuinely felt like an asshole, but that would be counterproductive. He already made the decision to go. Now he was just wasting time. 

As he left he kicked the restaurant door open and let it slam closed behind him. He passively aggressively hailed a taxi, if doing so was possible, and threw himself into the backseat with suppressed rage. He barked the address on his screen to the driver, and glared at New York as it flashed by through his window.

The drive took longer than Darren expected it to. He wasn’t sure if this was because the driver was trying to take the long way and charge him more, or if it was because Chris was in a part of the city really, really far away from the hotel the cast and crew were staying in, and the restaurant he’d just left. The lights of the city had stopped being glamorous a few minutes ago, and were now kind of sad and small and orange and sporadic.

The taxi rolled to a stop on a side street with no traffic. Darren opened the door but didn’t get out at first, hoping Chris would be outside, waiting for him. But Darren didn’t see him, or anyone at all.

“Chris!” he called out, trying to be loud enough for Chris to hear but, hopefully, no one else to.

Nothing happened, except that a dog down the street began to bark.

Now Darren was doubly enraged. He told the taxi to wait for him and went stomping up the sidewalk, squinting to see a number on the brick apartments in the dim light.

The first building was the wrong one. On his way to the next he passed an alley so dark he’d barely recognized its existence until a meek little, “hey,” came from it.

Darren stopped, taking a moment to decide whether or not he’d made it up. But then he heard his own name. He squinted down the alley, trying to see anything. A body on the ground, shoulders slumped against a brick wall, slowly came into view.

“What are you doing?” Darren demanded.

“Hanging out,” Chris said.

Darren rolled his eyes. “Get up, I have a cab waiting.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

Chris was silent at first. Eventually he said, “I’m on a date.”

Darren sighed and reached down to grab Chris’s hands and pull him to his feet. But when he got close enough to do it, he saw the blood on his face, and froze. “What happened to you?”

Chris just shrugged.

“Are you hurt?” Darren asked stupidly. Obviously someone didn’t bleed if they weren’t hurt. “Should I take you to the hospital?”

Chris shook his head, which apparently hurt him to do, so he stopped quickly. “No,” he frowned. “Just help me get back to the hotel. Come here.”

Darren leaned down, closer to Chris, and Chris put an arm over Darren’s shoulders. He used his other hand to grasp the brick and pull himself to standing, scraping his nails and fingertips as he did. Leaning on Darren, he paused to brush the dirt off his hands, even though he was covered in it, and his pants had a rip in the knee.

“Are you okay?” Darren asked again as they made a slow limp toward the taxi. “Seriously, what happened?”

“Oh, you know, I borrowed a really great bag from wardrobe.”

Darren almost turned to look for it, to pick it up for Chris, as though he’d forgotten it, but managed to realize what this really meant first. “You were mugged?”

“That’ll teach me to borrow without asking. It’s okay,” Chris waved a hand. “They probably needed my wallet more than I did. I just wish they didn’t beat the shit out of me in the process. They could have just had it.”

“And they let you keep your phone?”

“That wasn’t in the bag.”

“We have to call the police,” Darren said as he helped Chris into the car. Both of Chris’s arms were around Darren’s neck now, as he slid backward onto the seat. “Do you remember what they looked like? Was there more than one of them?”

“No, and no. I don’t care, I just want to take a shower and go to sleep.”

Darren rounded the car and got in on the other side. He instructed the driver to take them back to their hotel and then stared at Chris for a moment, not knowing what to say and making sure he wasn’t actively bleeding or about to die or anything. Chris didn’t look back. He stared out the window. “Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt? I would have come a hell of a lot faster.”

Chris shrugged one shoulder, not even blinking. “It doesn’t matter. You didn’t have to come.” He said the last bit so quietly it was almost inaudible.

Darren narrowed his eyes at him. “I’ll yell at you about both of those statements tomorrow.”

At that, Chris finally turned to look at him. He said nothing, just looked. When the car stopped at a red light, Chris dropped his gaze to look at the ripped patent leather of the back seat. He used a bloody, dirty hand to help himself slide closer to Darren, so close that the sides of their legs touched. He wrapped his arms around Darren’s slim waist, and tried to snuggle his head into Darren’s chest. “Thank you for coming,” he whispered into the fabric of Darren’s shirt.

Darren rested a cheek on the top of Chris’s head. The city outside was getting brighter again. They didn’t speak or move for the rest of the ride back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Los Angeles**

Chris would never forget the day he was sitting in makeup, minding his own business, when Lea and Amber walked up to him and smiled at him like they had just done something horribly mischievous, like they were counting down the seconds until Chris thanked them exuberantly for doing something for him he’d never asked them to do. It turned out that was exactly what they were doing.

Chris smiled back at them, nervously. “It’s not my birthday and I don’t like surprises,” he said proactively.

“We found him,” Lea replied.

Chris’s smile fell. “Oh, God,” he said, and turned back to his mirror. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to ever have.

“He’s amazing,” Amber said.

“And gorgeous,” Lea added.

“And super talented,” Amber said.

“And hot, and possibly even nice,” Lea added.

“And we totally weren’t listening through the door while he was singing in his audition,” Amber said.

“And we certainly didn’t Google him afterward and find out he’s, like, Internet famous, and that almost everyone on the whole Internet also thinks he’s hot and amazing and super talented.”

“Nor did we make absolutely sure he got hired on your behalf, by saying you personally endorse him.”

Chris’s jaw dropped. “You said _I_ wanted him? I don’t even know who he is!”

“I bet you do know who he is,” Lea said, jutting out her hip. “He’s famous. Among the nerds.”

Chris hesitated, unable to keep himself from exploring this tidbit of information. “Among the nerds?” he asked in spite of himself, turning to look at them again. He did not care about this.

“He _plays Harry Potter_ ,” Lea smacked her hand on the counter he sat at with each word, adding a somewhat violent emphasis, “in that Internet musical play thing about Harry Potter that everyone’s nerd friends email them the link to and tell them to watch but no one actually does. I mean, I don’t.”

“I haven’t seen it either,” Amber said. “And unlike you both, I don’t have any nerd friends. But it looked like something you’d like, Chris.”

Chris bit his tongue and decided to lie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then we’ll show you!” they both said at once, grabbing for their phones.

“Fine, I know what you’re talking about!” Chris admitted, yelling a little louder than he meant to.

The girls stopped pulling up Youtube on their phones and ridiculous grins slowly spread across both their faces.

Chris rolled his eyes. “But you’re both delusional. He is not hot. He’s supposed to look dopey, or something, that’s why it’s funny.”

“No,” Lea said.

“No,” Amber said, too.

“He cut his hair,” Lea said.  
“And wore clothes that actually fit.”

“He’s such a good singer, Chris,” Lea said. “Granted, we only made it about 45 seconds into the Harry Potter thing he did, but it in no way showcases what he can actually do.”

Chris crossed his arms over his stomach and nodded slowly, lips tight, waiting for them to gush more.

But they seemed to be finished talking, and had now moved on to grinning shamelessly at him.

“Is that it?”

“That’s it,” Lea nodded.

“He’s really hired?”

“He’s really hired,” Amber said. “He starts in a few weeks. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

They grinned at him a while longer. Finally he stood up. “I have to go.”

“Are you going to throw up? You look pale,” Lea said.

“No,” Amber said, “he’s going to jump for joy because he’s so pleased with our work.”

Chris was halfway out the door. He stopped to turn to them again. “You really said _I_ wanted him?”

“We said you were already his fan and would approve,” Lea winked emphatically.

Chris nodded again, feeling dazed. “I have to go.”

In the weeks following, when people would mention Darren to him, he would say something like “I’m fine, I don’t care, it’s cool, I’m fine,” in a quick jumble, and then he would walk away. But with each passing day he managed to look a little more convincing saying it. Eventually he only said “I’m fine” once per sentence, and managed to keep all the color in his cheeks.

It wasn’t that it was Darren Criss. It could have been anyone. He had a minor problem when Chord was cast, too, but managed to keep himself busy enough to not have a mental breakdown then. He told himself he would have a mental breakdown later, when he actually had to kiss someone. Luckily he was saved from Chord by Dianna’s magical moon goddess beauty, granted more time to put off the inevitable.

Maybe, he thought, he could convince the writers that Darren and Dianna had chemistry too, and Darren’s character could go onto the wait list of Quinn’s future boyfriends. Maybe they would get around to rewriting him before Chris had to kiss him.

And the problem wasn’t even actually that he had to kiss someone for television. He had kissed people before, for Christ’s sake; he had even made out with Heather on screen. But that was Heather. And when he thought about the two or three boys he’d kissed before, they just seemed like slobbering high schoolers who smelled bad and who Chris would be happy never to see again.

Not that he knew whether or not Darren smelled or drooled, but judging from the one time Chris allowed himself to Google pictures of him, stared at the thumbnails, and then closed the whole browser with a shaking hand, he seemed like a handsome, wonderful, good smelling kind of person.

The problem was this: he remembered being about fourteen years old and doing a fake interview with himself in his bathroom mirror, following his recent Oscar win. He pretended his pajamas were a tuxedo and that he was actually twenty years old. He remembered the interviewer, Chad Chadopolous, (really himself facing another direction), asking him about his date for the night, a lovely androgynous angel wearing equally as androgynous evening wear. “The whole world has been speculating whether or not the two of you fell in love in real life, or if it was all for the film. The chemistry was undeniable. Now, with whatshisface on your arm, we finally see the truth!”

“Well, Chad,” Chris would say, pivoting to face the shower instead of the sink, “we just couldn’t help it. When you pretend to be in love with someone every day for so long, it’s impossible to simply stop at the drop of a hat. It was fate. There was nothing we could do,” he would say, and laugh, and the crowd in his head would applaud and cheer and dab at their joyful tears.

And he remembered agreeing with the writers, over and over again, when they said Kurt needed a love interest, a positive influence, a best friend, a crush. Yes, he’d said, yes yes yes, when it was just something that would happen in the distant future. When he didn’t have to think about actually meeting the guy, or shaking his hand, or looking him in the eyes. Or filming sappy scenes where he had to cry and clutch at him, or filming kisses and retakes on top of retakes.

The second problem was that Chris was just absolutely certain that, unless Darren Criss was some kind of orphaned kitten killer, he was probably going to fall in love with him. It had been his lifelong dream. He was going to be a successful writer/actor and marry a handsome costar. He’d already defied the laws of probability and accomplished a third of his goals and well on his way to accomplishing two thirds of them. And the older Chris got, the more the androgynous angel in his dreams had turned into Chris’s type: tall, fit, dark hair, pretty eyes. The tall part wasn’t so important.

And, Chris knew, without even thinking twice, that Darren was straight. And he knew that Darren was going to be one of those open minded people, which, admittedly, was better than any other alternative, but who would go out of his way to assure everyone he didn’t judge people for their sexuality. He would say he didn’t hesitate a second before auditioning to play a gay character. He would obviously be one of those people who would say you fall in love with a person, not a gender, but who would then sleep around with half the girls in L.A.. And Chris knew this would end in one of two ways.

Scenario one. Chris would fall in love with him, and occasionally drop hints, but mostly keep his feelings to himself, bottled up so tightly that some day he would burst and call Darren at three in the morning, sobbing and probably drunk, and profess his love. And in response, Darren would say he was flattered but he just wasn’t interested in Chris, or any boy, for that matter, in a romantic way. “But there’s someone out there for you,” Darren would say. “And I’ll always be your friend.” Then Chris would hate going to work every day, so much that he would have to convince the writers to kill Kurt off in an elevator shaft accident as soon as possible. And his heart would be broken.

Scenario two. Chris would fall in love with him, but he would keep it bottled up so tight that he wouldn’t even admit it to himself. Sure, a therapist would say this was the wrong thing to do, but it seemed better for his short term health. If he ignored his own feelings, he would actually be able to work. He would be able to concentrate on other things. He would finally finish his damn novel. He would be able to breathe. But Darren would notice Chris wasn’t paying attention to him. Darren would pretend to be his best friend on set, and would sometimes even flirt with him, jokingly, of course, and Chris would ignore it diligently. And this would bother Darren. And Darren, being so open minded, and confused, and sort of insulted, would call Chris at three in the morning, definitely drunk, but not sobbing, and tell him to come over. And if Chris did, they would make out, or maybe worse, and in the morning Darren would say he just had to get it out of his system, but he still has a girlfriend, and sorry, dude. And Chris would be heartbroken.

Chris far preferred scenario two. And it would be easy enough to avoid that final broken heart, as long as he never, ever gave in to Darren, even if he begged and pleaded and called, drunk, at three in the morning.

Simple.

Chris met Darren for the first time when they, the rest of the cast, the writers, and some of the crew, all gathered for the table read of Darren’s first episode. So, there were about thirty people staring at them. And Lea and Amber were grinning at him from ear to ear, of course. Not awkward at all.

Whatever Chris was expecting to happen, it wasn’t what actually happened. Darren was polite, shook his hand, smiled, asked how Chris was doing. Said it was nice to finally meet him. Chris reciprocated all of this. And then it was over. Darren sat across from him at the table, a table so big it felt like they were in two different rooms. No one expected Chris to actually act out the starry eyed stares Kurt was supposed to give Blaine at that first read, so he kept his eyes on his script, and so did Darren.

And when it was over, everyone stood and hugged or waved goodbye, according to how much they liked each other and how close in proximity they were to one another in the big room. The table stood in the way of everyone. Darren gave a little wave to Chris on his way out, but it was so quick that Chris didn’t even notice it until Darren had shifted his gaze and dropped his hand. And then he left, and that was it.


	3. Chapter 3

**New York**

“Do you have sunglasses?” Chris asked Darren, suddenly untangling himself from Darren in the back of their taxi. It was nearing their hotel, and a fans-with-hidden-cameras-in-the-bushes warning bell went off in his head. “Or a hat, at least?”

“Sunglasses?” Darren repeated. For a moment he had almost fallen asleep. Chris was so warm and so quiet. He futilely patted his pockets. “No, it’s night time. I didn’t bring any with me.”

Chris cursed under his breath and went back to his own side of the back seat, trying to decipher how close they were from the landmarks passing by the window.

“I won’t let anyone see you,” Darren tried to assure him, reading his mind. “It’s late anyway, not that many people will be out. And I can sneak you in.”

Chris was quiet, apparently not really listening.

“Never underestimate my powers as a ninja,” Darren tried. Not even a smile.

Chris being without his wallet post-mugging, Darren paid for the cab ride when they arrived. He tried to round the car and help Chris out, but Chris was already out, wobbling and limping toward the lobby doors alone. “Go in a different elevator,” Chris called over his shoulder.

A plump tourist woman tried to make it into Chris’s elevator, but a vigorous attack on the ‘close doors’ button saved him at the last second. She joined Darren in a second elevator instead.

Darren had to think a moment before he remembered whether or not Chris was staying on the same floor he was. And then he wondered if Chris actually meant for him to follow him at all. Maybe Chris was done with him for the night. But he couldn’t believe he wouldn’t at least thank him, or say goodnight. And anyway, Darren didn’t want to leave him.

Maybe he had a concussion.

“Nine, please,” the woman said behind him for a second time, much ruder this time.

“I’m sorry,” Darren said, and hit the buttons for nine and ten.

Stepping off the elevator, Darren just barely caught a glimpse of Chris’s head peeking around a doorway before he shut it.

Darren went toward the room, looking behind him at the empty hallway. He didn’t know what else to do, so he knocked.

“Is anyone else out there?” Chris mumbled from the other side.

Darren checked both directions again. “Nope.”

There was a long pause, and then, “Are you sure?”

Darren checked again. “I’m sure.”

Chris opened the door and pulled him in, grasping a handful of Darren’s shirt. The door shut behind them, but Chris didn’t move. He didn’t seem to plan on, or be capable of, letting go of Darren’s shirt.

“Um,” said Darren. “Are you okay?”

“I’m going to take a shower,” Chris said, quick as ever, but his eyes were clouded over and seemed to be staring at a mark on the wall over Darren’s right shoulder. His knuckles turned white where they held his shirt.

“Okay,” Darren said, waiting, but Chris didn’t move, other than sway back and forth on his feet. “Are you going to fa--” Darren got out before Chris dropped, fast, to the floor. Darren managed to save his head before it smashed into the edge of a protruding wall.

“Okay,” Darren said, “okay, you’re okay.” He was mostly trying to convince himself. “Let’s get to the bed. Are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?”

Chris turned to his knees and started crawling to the bathroom. “No, no! I’m taking a shower.”

“You can’t even stand up,” Darren pointed out, following him.

Chris dropped his head, still trying to crawl. “I’ll...” he paused to catch his breath, resting his head on the carpet, “take a bath.”

“I’m calling 911,” Darren said.

“No!” Chris yelled, twisting to grab at Darren’s legs. He hugged his knees. “I’m fine. My head is fine. I’m just tired. Darren,” Chris looked up at him with shining eyes. “Come down here.”

Darren crouched down.

Chris looked like he was about to burst into tears. “No one can know about this, okay?”

“If you’re really hurt, it’s not worth it,” Darren shook his head.

“I’m not really hurt,” Chris pleaded with him. “Just help me walk to the bathroom.”

Darren rolled his eyes and draped Chris’s arm over his shoulders again. He pulled him up, and after some initial wobbles, Chris managed to accomplish walking.

Darren deposited him at the bathroom sink, which Chris half sat on. He immediately began pulling his clothes off and throwing them around the room. Darren barely had the time to get out before he saw anything embarrassing. He shut the door three quarters of the way. “I’m staying right here. I’m listening for any big crashes, and I’m calling an ambulance if you fall.”

“Okay,” Chris said, turning on the water.

Darren waited patiently. After a minute he noticed three drips of blood on the white tile of the bathroom floor, in the tiny sliver of the room he could see. He went to the phone on the desk of Chris’s room. He fully intended to call an ambulance, until his fingers actually touched the buttons, and then he remembered how Chris had pleaded with him, and his stupid shining eyes. It was true, if he went to the hospital, everyone would find out. The press would find out in a matter of hours. He knew Chris would be mortified.

So, against his better judgement, he called the front desk instead and requested bandages. They arrived a minute later, faster than Darren expected. An errand boy handed him band-aids in a variety of sizes, cotton gauze, tape, and hydrogen peroxide. Darren thanked and tipped him and hoped he didn’t know he was in someone else’s room.

Darren dumped the medical supplies on the bed and went back to the bathroom.

“Chris?” he called out.

There was silence for a moment, in which Darren’s heart seemed to speed up and stop at the same time. Then, “Darren,” Chris said.

“You’re clean, get out here. You’re making me nervous.”

The water turned off. “Oh, fuck,” Chris said. Steam poured out the crack in the door. “Will you get me some clothes?”

Darren found Chris’s unpacked suitcase and picked through it. He ended up choosing basically underwear, a thin tank top and boxers, because he wanted to stick band-aids all over Chris to fix him, and to do so, he needed to see most of his wounds. He threw the clothes to Chris.

“Not the choices I would have made,” Chris said from behind the door, “but whatever.”

When he pulled the door open, Darren’s heart really did stop. Chris’s arms and legs were covered in bruises and cuts. His lip was swollen, and his left eye was swelling shut. In the dark Darren hadn’t noticed much of any of it. He still hadn’t even turned on the light in the bedroom. But the harsh bathroom light illuminated everything.

Darren moved finally, remembering he shouldn’t stare, and took Chris by the waist to help him to the bed. Chris sat first, his legs hanging over, but then he lay back on his back, his feet still dangling.

“Can I turn on the lights?” Darren asked.

“No,” Chris grumbled, covering his eyes at the thought. “I want to sleep.”

“Can I turn on one lamp?” Darren tried.

“I suppose.”

Darren started with Chris’s legs, sitting on the floor with his bandages. One long, deep gash went up his calf. “Okay,” Darren said, staring at it. “Were you _stabbed_?”

“No.”

“Go through an industrial fan, or something?”

“No.”

Darren tried to put hydrogen peroxide on it, but Chris responded by almost kicking out his teeth, so he pushed the bottle away, and wrapped gauze around the whole leg instead. With the rest of his smaller wounds, he stuck on band-aids, so many that by the time he was finished, leaning over him on his bed, Chris looked fairly ridiculous.

As though he knew it was the last band-aid Darren was going to stick on, Chris opened his eyes when he was finished. “What now?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Should I go? Should I watch over your sleep like a stalker? To make sure you don’t die, I mean.”

“No. Stay, I mean. Just fall asleep with me.” Chris reached out a hand. “Lie down.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Los Angeles**

Chris and Darren were in the part of Kurt and Blaine’s lives when they mostly just sat in a coffee shop and talked. That was good, according to Chris. He still had to direct starry eyed stares at Darren, but at least they weren’t making out yet. Blaine was still hopelessly unaware that Kurt loved him. Maybe Chris could find a way to bribe the writers to make that last forever. Except then the fans would probably burn down the studio.

After making the same joke so many times that it not only was not funny anymore, it almost didn’t sound like English to his own ears, the crew wrapped the scene and let Chris go. Darren disappeared immediately, not that Chris noticed or cared. Chris went to a dressing room and changed into normal clothes, immediately comforted by them. Now he could breathe, and it didn’t feel like small animals with sharp teeth were biting him when he sat. He left his makeup on, deciding to wash it off when he got home, risking that it might make him break out. He just wanted to get out of there quickly, that day, for some reason.

He was on the sidewalk outside the soundstage, nearing the parking lot, when he heard footsteps behind him. “Hey, Chris, where are you going?”

It was Darren. He knew it was Darren without looking. He spun around. “Home?”

“Oh,” said Darren, and he almost looked a little crestfallen. “But before you go, you should know today is a really important day to the people of my religion.”

They had almost never talked about anything personal before, so Chris wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. The word ‘religion’ dictated he should err on the side of caution, and take him seriously. “Oh,” he said slowly. “Okay.”

“Yeah, we have a feast at midnight under the full moon and I’m making this up, it’s actually my birthday and you should come to the bar with me and my friends.”

“Oh,” Chris said again. He wasn’t sure there was any plausible excuse in the world that would not sound like blatant lying. He had no choice. “Okay.”

Darren’s bar turned out to be some kind of exceptionally elite nightclub where heiresses danced around a rooftop pool with purple underwater lights. Chris was positive he’d seen it once on an episode of Laguna Beach or something. Everyone looked really golden and rich and possibly related. He immediately wished he hadn’t come as soon as he arrived, even more than he already wished he didn’t have to go before he got there.

Darren, with a gold painted cardboard crown on his head, was sitting at a corner table, his back to the iron bars that kept drunkards from falling off the roof. He was mostly surrounded by people Chris didn’t know, except a couple of extras and possibly a grip from the show. For some reason, Chris had been expecting the entire cast to be there. But he hadn’t really thought about the fact that he had never shot a scene with the vast majority of them. He only saw them in passing and at table reads.

He briefly considered turning and running, but Darren locked eyes with him before he could accomplish it. His cheeks were red and he stumbled through the crowd of friends to get to Chris. He forged a trail by doing a kind of breaststroke with his arms to push people away. When he finally made it to Chris, he basically fell on him. He wrapped his arms around Chris’s waist in a weird side hug and pressed his cheek to Chris’s.

“Everyone!” he bellowed like a beached whale, “Chris Colfer is here!”

People froze for a second to look at him. Someone politely applauded, and a girl said from the depths of somewhere, “your boyfriend!”

“My boyfriend!” Darren agreed, repeating her words so loud everyone in the surrounding three blocks probably heard him.

“Okay,” Chris said, looking over the edge of the roof and wondering if he’d survive if he jumped off. That was enough of that. “I, um, have to g--”

But Darren wasn’t listening. He pulled Chris bodily back through the crowd and into a chair. First Darren pulled him onto his lap, but Chris was having none of that, so he slid down and over, trying to compress himself so they both fit in it, the only open chair. But they both really just hung off the edge. Chris was uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure Darren knew what being uncomfortable meant.

Darren became distracted by a friend. No one seemed to want to talk to Chris, probably because they sensed he didn’t want to talk to them. He mumbled something to himself about the deplorable state of his life. Darren, who seemed to have canine hearing, turned to him. “What?”

“I said I can’t stay long,” Chris said, recovering flawlessly.

“No, you have to stay!” Darren whined. “I haven’t even told you yet that this is my pre-birthday party.”

Chris wondered if this meant he had to go to another party later. He would definitely come up with some kind of medical emergency to get out of it a second time. “Oh?”

“Today is really my birthday, but I’m not having my real party for two more weeks.” Darren frowned. “No, three more weeks. Two or three weeks, I don’t know. It’s going to be in Las Vegas.”

“Ah,” Chris said. “That must be why we’re here on a Wednesday night before tomorrow’s 8:00 AM call time.”

“Yeah, but you can’t just let your actual birthday pass by without a little fun.”

“Are you guys going to get together?” someone shamelessly interrupted them. “On the show, I mean.”

“We don’t know yet,” Darren said, but Chris nodded from behind him, knowing there was no avoiding it, and people laughed.

Darren turned to look at him. “We are?” he asked, weirdly exuberant about it. “What have you heard?”

“Nothing,” Chris said. “I didn’t have to.”

People spent the next twenty minutes asking unanswerable questions and declaring how cute Chris and Darren, “I mean Kurt and Blaine,” they’d correct themselves, were together. This caused Darren to side hug Kurt again and to generally clutch at him for the rest of the night.

After that Darren became particularly enamored with calling Chris his boyfriend. He took to instructing everyone to give their gifts for him to his boyfriend, and the five different girls in tiny dresses who wanted to dance with him had to ask his boyfriend for permission first. Eventually Chris was frowning himself sick under a massive pile of packages wrapped up with sparkly bows. But he didn’t leave. He decided if he was going to get out of future Darren parties, he would have to give this one a valiant effort first.

Almost five hours later, only a handful of Darren’s friends remained, and most of them were asleep on the ground around the pool. The DJ was only playing slow songs at that point, perhaps an effort to subconsciously encourage people to leave so that the club could close. Darren still wore his gilt cardboard crown, but it was askew on his head. He was downright prom dancing with a girl in a cream dress, and both of them had their eyes closed, like maybe they were asleep on their feet.

Chris wasn’t actually allowed to drink alcohol for three more months, but no one had even checked his ID on the way in, so he’d gotten away with a few. Still, he was by far the most sober person at the party. He tapped his foot against a table leg rhythmically, waiting for Darren to herd those who remained to his boyfriend so his boyfriend could call them all cabs, and by the way, Chris was his boyfriend.

When Darren’s prom date decided to stumble to the women’s room inside, he turned his attention back to Chris. He held out a hand. “Come dance with me, I love this song.”

“No, thanks,” Chris said.

“Come on, it’ll be romantic,” Darren grinned.

Chris stood. “I have to go, actually. I need three hours of sleep at least.”

“No, no, please don’t go,” Darren frowned.

“Yeah, it’s...” Chris looked around and sighed. “I have to. But I’ll see you again in a few hours.”

“We’re going to look like shit.” Darren put a hand over his heart. “ _I’m_ going to look like shit. I’m not usually so unprofessional.”

Chris shrugged. “The situation called for it.”

“Thanks for coming,” Darren said.

Against his better judgement, Chris had to ask. “Are you going to get home okay? You didn’t drive here, did you?”

Darren grinned at him. “Are you worried about me? That’s fucking adorable.”

“You and all the helpless citizens of L.A.. I just don’t want you to... kill anyone.”

“I’ll take a cab,” Darren said.

“Okay,” Chris nodded, and paused a moment before he moved toward the door. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow,” Darren repeated. He waited until Chris was on the other side of the roof before calling out to him, “Are you mad at me?”

Chris froze, his hand on the door handle. He hated himself for being so obvious. “No,” he said, trying to sound flabbergasted. “Why would I be?”

“I don’t know,” Darren shrugged, like he had no idea either, like Chris was the one who brought it up in the first place. “I love you, bye.” He waved him away and twirled toward the table, almost falling into the pool in the process.

Chris rolled his eyes and left.


	5. Chapter 5

**New York**

Apparently Darren took Chris’s outstretched hand before he fell asleep, because when he woke in the morning he was still holding it. Darren sat up on an elbow to look down at Chris. They had fallen asleep holding hands like five year old boys afraid of ghosts during a sleepover, or something. It was definitely one of the weirdest, but not worst, wake ups in a stranger’s bed he’d ever had. Not that Chris was really a stranger.

He let go of his hand. They’d been clasped together so long they were a little clammy. Chris, sleeping peacefully, immediately moved the hand that once belonged to Darren up to squeeze between his pillow and his cheek. Now he looked like a cherub, like one of those scary pictures of sleeping babies in teacups in calendars that his grandma hung in her kitchen.

Except Chris also looked terrifying, covered in bruises and band-aids with little crusts of blood at the edges that had escaped in the night. So, he was a cherubic baby in a teacup who also joined a fight club or had survived a drug deal gone wrong the night before.

Darren looked away and frowned at himself. Something about his relationship with Chris was seriously fucked up. Like, to the point of maybe needing a therapist, fucked up.

He’d slept in the same black suit pants he’d worn to his date at the restaurant, and a white undershirt. He spent too much time trying to press wrinkles out of his pants before he remembered the girl. He looked at the clock. It was 2:00 in the afternoon.

He cursed and went searching for his phone in his jacket, thrown on the floor. The movement woke Chris, who squinted and frowned at Darren like he was looking directly into the sun. “What are you doing?”

The screen was black. The battery had died. “I was going to call that girl I took to dinner last night. I said I’d call her in the morning.”

“Well, don’t,” Chris said, like he was a little offended by the idea.

Darren looked up at him. He was almost stupid enough to ask why not, but he kept his mouth shut.

Chris made pained expressions as he tried to sit up in bed. He kicked away the big duvet blanket and flung his legs over the side. “Come here,” he demanded.

Darren sort of knew something was happening. He knew he could refuse or leave if he wanted to. But without thinking about it, he slid on his knees toward the bed, not brave enough yet to get up off the floor.

When he arrived at Chris’s feet, Chris sort of melted off the side of the bed and landed in a neat pile in Darren’s lap. Without another word, he wrapped his arms around Darren’s neck and kissed him. Except for the five million times they’d kissed each other before, it was their first kiss.

Kurt and Blaine usually shared elongated, drawn out pecks, mostly because Darren had some kind of honorable notion in his head about their relationship when he started the show. And partially because the one time he stuck his tongue in Chris’s mouth five crew members told him to knock it off and they ended up cutting the scene anyway. Well, this time, Chris started it.

And in the fleeting fifteen seconds that Chris kissed him, Darren had a weird montage of memories play through his mind. He remembered Chris always being standoffish, always going out of his way to not be near Darren or really talk to him if he didn’t have to. He always seemed strained around Darren, like he was always being pulled in ten different directions and he was about to rip into pieces, and trying not to show it. Of course, sometimes Darren got the idea that Chris was hiding the fact he had a crush on him, but other times Chris would be so good at acting indifferent toward him that Darren would feel guilty for ever entertaining the idea in the first place.

But they weren’t exactly regular people who could have regular crushes on each other. They had pretended to be in love with each other five days a week for two years. Yes, it was a job. He was paid to tell whomever a casting director might chose, on their wildest whim, that that person was the love of his life, and appear sort of genuine doing it. Still, he couldn’t pretend there was a grueling amount of acting going on. Glee wasn’t a period drama about love and loss in a World War II concentration camp. It was just a show about people who liked singing played by people who liked singing. In most ways it was exactly like their real lives, except with less alcohol and more homework, and the fact that, in real life, most of them didn’t speak so rapidly. And sometimes they’d have to kiss each other in weird combinations, and when they didn’t want to, or feel like it, but for keeping a smile on their faces they kept getting paid for it. And, possibly, some of them were a bit more markedly depressed in real life. But those were the only real differences. Chris had even joked once that Glee was actually a thinly veiled reality show about Lea and Cory. And everyone had laughed. It was kind of funny because it was kind of true.

Anyway, had Darren ever actually sat down and taken the time to think through his relationship with Chris? Of course not. They were barely friends, even though they strictly adhered to an unspoken rule that they always told other people that they’re best friends and that the other one is perfect and hilarious and great to work with and lovely and brilliant and whatever. Chris was just a private person, he took a while to get to know. And maybe he just never intended to let Darren in. That was what Darren thought, and that was all he ever thought. It was okay. It was fine.

And then the montage was over, and he was dropped gracelessly back into the moment. It was suddenly more obvious to him that Chris’s tongue was sliding over his own and that he was the one leaning into Chris without realizing it, like he was the one who had been waiting for this to happen for two years and was relishing the moment. If he was brutally honest with himself, he would admit he had no idea Chris was capable of kissing someone like this. He always considered Chris an innocent, inexperienced little magical creature who needed protecting, who barely spoke to anyone, much less made out with them. And how was it possible he didn’t have morning breath, or taste at all how Darren imagined kissing a gross guy would probably be like? He was all soft and warm and good at whatever he was doing. And no matter how he looked at it, Darren knew this was an important kiss. It had feelings and emotions wrapped up all around it. It wasn’t an ordinary kiss-your-friend-at-the-bar-because-it’s-the-European-thing-to-do sort of kiss, or even a funny ha-ha-I-just-sneak-attack-kissed-you-in-Dublin-in-front-of-a-few-thousand-people sort of kiss. It was one of those rare I’ve-loved-you-forever-and-just-wanted-you-to-know kind of kisses. He just wasn’t sure which one of them was saying it.

Chris pulled away first and Darren opened his eyes, not even remembering closing them. It was like someone had slapped him when he’d become hysterical. Suddenly he saw everything in a different way. He couldn’t stop staring at Chris’s bottom lip, which was still swollen and on the verge of splitting from last night’s fight/mugging/whatever, and all of a sudden it was the weirdest, sexiest thing Darren had ever seen. And Chris had a sleepy, lusty, half lidded look on his face, like he was practically asking Darren to pull him back into bed and have his way with him. And Darren might have, but Chris pushed Darren away before he knew what was happening.

Chris struggled to his feet and limped back to bed. He rolled into the blankets and covered himself up completely, but not before Darren saw how red his cheeks were. A moment later he pulled the blanket over his face down enough so one eye peeked through.

“Will you go get us some food?” he asked, all muffled under three inches of fluff. “I can’t stand the room service here.”

Darren just nodded and sort of floated out of the room in a daze, without changing his clothes, or combing his hair, or looking in a mirror, or caring.


	6. Chapter 6

**Dublin**

The whole building shook to its foundation in the way buildings tend to do at the ends of sold out concerts. Half of the crowd was trying to push itself out of its own way to get back home, the other half was still cheering in hopes of an encore.

Chris was the first off stage. He was so fast that no one even heard when he slammed the bathroom door shut as hard as he could. Everyone else lagged behind, laughing and jumping on each other and pulling off outer pieces of wardrobe. They were in a post-performance high, and relieved to know that finally the tour was over and they could get back to their own beds soon. There was only one more night in a hotel and one more transatlantic flight left standing in their way.

Chris could hear them laughing from the other room, groaning their fatigue and complaining about how many times they dropped their microphones or were hit in the head with someone else’s microphone or how many times their shoes went flying across the stage and maybe hit a fan in the face. 

“Wait, what happened to Chris?” he heard Ashley ask after a few minutes. As the first to notice, she earned his lifelong respect.

“He’s in the bathroom,” Darren said.

Chris frowned. How did he know? He wasn’t paying attention. He never paid any attention to him.

Someone knocked on the door. “Chris?” Naya said, quiet and concerned. “Are you sick?”

Chris sniffed and wiped his cheeks, even though she couldn’t see him. “No. I mean, yes. I don’t feel well. I just need a couple minutes.”

“Do you need some medicine?” she asked. “I’m sure someone around here has Tylenol at least.”

“No,” Chris said, inwardly pleading with her to go away. “I don’t need anything. I’ll be out in just a second.”

“Okay,” she said, and seemed to go away.

Another knock on the door came a moment later. “Chris, it’s me and Harry,” Mark said.

Chris sighed. “I’m fine.”

“We have medicine for you. I have Pepto and Harry has Imodium.”

“It’s the foreign food, dude,” Harry said. “It gets you every time.”

“I don’t have diarrhea!” Chris yelled, and immediately felt bad for yelling at them. “I just... it’s just a little stomach ache.” He decided not to say anything about how Ireland was one of the least exotic places an American person could go. He didn’t have the energy.

“Then take this Pepto Bismol, seriously. It helps,” Mark said.

He didn’t have a choice. He saw his red face in the mirror, but couldn’t will it to be any less red. He opened the door fast, grabbed the pink bottle from Mark’s hand, and slammed it shut again, in the shortest amount of time possible. “Thank you,” he said.

He heard them mumble something to each other, and heard them walk away.

While he was gulping air and glaring at Mark’s pink bottle of medicine on the sink, someone else knocked on the door.

“Chris, it’s Dianna.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead against the mirror. “Oh my God,” he said under his breath. There literally couldn’t be anything worse than being stuck in a building that afforded no privacy except a small bathroom, having an emotional breakdown, and surrounded by a dozen people trying to get you to tell them all your secrets.

“Naya, Mark and Harry told me you were crying,” she said, all gentle and adorable. For some reason her tiny voice was soothing. He thought maybe, suddenly, he should just tell her. She wouldn’t tell anyone else. She was too nice. And maybe he had to tell someone before he exploded.

He opened the door. He meant to pull her into the bathroom with him and admit everything to her, about how angry he was, and how unfair everything was, and how guilty he felt for being angry, and how that just made him angrier. But he only got as far as putting his hand on her wrist before he realized someone was standing behind her. Darren. Staring at him with some kind of stupid sympathetic look.

Well, thought Chris. Now they had both betrayed him. He slammed the door in both their faces.

“Chris!” they both said as he locked them out.

“Leave me alone, I’m sick,” he lied.

“We can see you’re upset about what Darren did tonight,” Dianna said. “But no one else knows. Don’t worry.”

“That is almost certainly not true,” Chris said, not trying to hide the cracks in his voice as he cried.

“Let us in, Chris,” Dianna said. “You don’t have to let me in, but maybe I can help. I can be a mediator.”

Chris didn’t respond. He heard them shuffling to change positions, and then Darren was talking to him through the door.

“I’m really sorry, Chris,” he said. “I just meant it as a joke. I knew the girls were going to kiss because it’s the last show, and I thought it would be funny if we did, too. I thought the fans would like it.”

Chris stared at the floor, his arms crossed tight. “They did,” he muttered.

He heard Dianna saying something quietly to Darren. Then Darren said, “I should have asked you first, and I’m sorry,” probably because Dianna told him to say it.

“Chris,” Dianna said, “are you just angry, or are you embarrassed?” She paused. “Tell him how it made you feel.”

“It was a joke,” Chris said quietly. He wasn’t even sure if they could hear him. He heard a thud at the door, like one of them was leaning on it, with their ear against it. “It was a joke on me.”

“I thought you would think it was funny. I thought everyone would think it was funny, or cute, or whatever,” Darren said.

“If you just thought Blaine should kiss Kurt, you would have asked me beforehand. And if you had, of course I would have said it was fine. But since you kept it a secret from me, you were obviously just trying to fuck with me. You knew what you were doing was wrong.”

“It was just supposed to be a surprise!” Darren said.

“It wasn’t a birthday party, Darren, you purposefully hurt my feelings. It wasn’t Blaine kissing Kurt, or it would have been scripted and planned out. It was you kissing me. And since you at least pretend to be straight all the time, the joke was on me.”

Darren kind of sputtered. “How?”

“Everyone in the audience thinks you’re straight, so they see you kissing me and they think, ‘oh, what a handsome rogue. He’s so dreamy and liberal. He could make an entire show about making out with alligators and ponies and we’d love it.’ And then they look at me, and know I’m gay, and they think, ‘ _oh_ , I bet _he’s_ certainly enjoying _that_.’ First of all, it’s impossible not to be in love with you after just looking at you once, and second of all, everyone knows I’m woefully single because I complain about it all the time in interviews. Basically, everyone knows I ran back here after the last song and locked myself in the bathroom and threw up and burst into tears. And they think you, on the other hand, are perfectly calm and collected and went back to your hotel to ravish a couple of large bosomed women at the same time.”

“Wait a minute,” Dianna said. “You threw up?”

“Doesn’t ravish just mean rape?” Darren asked.

“And I don’t think any of our fans actually believe Darren is straight,” Dianna added.

“Hey,” Darren said to defend himself, but it wasn’t very heartfelt.

“Whatever!” Chris yelled at them. “Now you know, now you can apologize again, and I’ll consider it, and I’ll let you know if and when I ever get over this.”

“I’m sorry,” Darren said again. “I was stupid. I didn’t think about any of those things before I did it. And I should have known, because I know you always over think everything.”

Chris thought he heard Dianna hit him.

“Anyway,” Darren said. “I’m sorry.”

“You can go now,” Chris said. In the mirror, his face was less red already.

“Okay...” Darren said, unsure if he should. “Bye.”

Chris didn’t reply.


	7. Chapter 7

**New York**

When Darren returned with three bags of Chinese food in tow, he was still in a daze. At least Chris was out of bed then, and even better, he was dressed. His lip looked less swollen but his eye was turning blacker.

“I just remembered real life,” Darren said, dropping the food at the desk across from the bed. “We’re supposed to shoot scenes tonight in Battery Park.”

“I know,” Chris said, already digging into the noodles with chopsticks. “I called in sick.”

Darren sat down in a chair before he fell over. His legs felt like jelly. “We can do that?”

“Ha, ha,” Chris said. “I told them I have food poisoning, which isn’t that much of a stretch, considering the quality of the room service here. Obviously everyone is furious with me, and it’s costing them a gazillion more dollars to keep us here for another couple of days, but...” He paused, looking Darren in the eyes. “I want to apologize."

Darren swallowed nervously and held his breath. And, without thinking first, he said, “Don’t.”

“I’m sorry I keep complaining about the hotel food,” Chris said with a half smile. “It makes me sound like such a privileged asshole. And while I truly believe it’s made out of plastic, I’m going to stop complaining about it.” He paused. “And I want to thank you.”

Despite Chris’s attempts to avoid the real subject, Darren was still thinking about the kiss. He tried to remember if he’d done anything to warrant gratitude. All he could remember was sitting on his knees, frozen in space, letting it happen. “For what?”

“For the food,” Chris said simply. “I’d have gone myself but it would have taken me three hours longer than you to limp there and back. And I would pay you back, but I still don’t have my wallet. I guess when we’re back in L.A., I can write you a check.”

Darren wanted to say something meaningful, or beautiful, or eloquent at least, about the kiss. About his feelings for Chris. About how he didn’t want to avoid it any longer or ever again. He wanted to say the perfect thing. Instead he said, “I don’t think anyone’s ever written me a check before.”

“Well, I’d...” Chris trailed off. “Okay, there’s no way for me to finish that sentence without saying something about being your first.”

“Can we please talk about it?”

“No,” Chris peered into his box of noodles. “Not right now. Or preferably ever.”

“Look, we don’t have to tiptoe around it. We don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”

Chris sucked up a noodle and looked at him like he was the stupidest person on earth.

“I’m sorry,” Darren said, grasping for words. “I don’t know the right things to say”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” Chris mumbled.

“Neither do you.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “I do, I kissed you without permission or warning or anything.”

“You don’t need to ask for my permission...”

“Fine, we’re talking about it.” Chris dropped the food and crossed his arms. “Tell me you’re flattered but not interested, and I’ll promise to never kiss you again, and we can move on with our lives.”

“I don’t want to tell you that.”

“Then tell me you were horrified and disgusted and--”

“Why would I come back here if I was horrified and disgusted?” Darren cut him off.

“Then it’s worse than I thought. I’ve sent you into a tailspin of self doubt. Now you think maybe you liked it, and now you think maybe you like _me_ , but all you really want to do is have sex with me, and when you realize you hate _that_ , you’re going to hate me, and stop talking to me, except to tell me you made a mistake with me and I... couldn’t... survive something like that. I’m not going to be your experiment.”

Darren stared at him, speechless for a while. Finally he said, “It’s completely unfair of you to assume that about me. You have no idea how I feel. You won’t even let me tell you.”

“Then tell me!” Chris yelled.

“I love you.”

But Chris had spun away in his chair before half of it was out of Darren’s mouth. He stood and plucked a couple of food containers from their bags. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Being ridiculous,” Chris said. He carried his food down the hall, toward the bathroom. “I’m eating this alone. You can leave if you want to.”

He shut the bathroom door and locked it.

Darren gave him a few minutes. He tried to eat, but one bite made him feel sick. He was too wound up. He went to Chris’s bathroom door and talked to it.

“I love you,” he said again. “And I would never hurt you on purpose. And, yes, I’m fairly terrified about what’s happening between us, but it’s not like it came out of nowhere. It didn’t start this morning. It started a long time ago. I just never thought about it before, because it was too hard to. But I am now, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t fucking leave me alone to deal with it all by myself. Or tell me that how I feel is ridiculous.”

It took him a minute, but Chris opened the door again eventually. He wasn’t crying, but his eyes were red like maybe he had been and had disposed of the evidence. “I’m sorry,” he said to Darren’s chest, not looking in his eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I just don’t trust...”

“Me?” Darren asked.

“That you know exactly how you feel right now. You could be caught up in the moment. As soon as you go out into the real world again--”

“Like ten minutes ago when I got the Chinese food,” Darren said.

“You’ll see sunlight, and breathe fresh air, and see the faces of other, regular people and you might regret this. You’ll resent me. You’ll think I practically held you hostage--”

“With your dashing good looks?”

“It’s sort of like we were drunk. I was drunk on pain and you... well, maybe you were actually drunk. You were having dinner before I sent you that text, maybe you had too much wine. We could tell each other that, and you could leave.”

“I don’t want to leave.”

Chris took a step toward Darren and took his hands. “Please, for me, take a little break. Take a walk, call someone you trust and ask for advice. Think about the future, about where you want to be in ten years, and who you want to be with. If you really want my psychotic ass bringing you down.”

“I like your psychotic ass, it makes my life more interesting,” Darren said.

Chris smiled, but pushed him toward the front door. “I’ll call you later tonight. If you change your mind about everything, you don’t even have to pick up the phone. I won’t hold it against you. But... if not... you can meet me for dinner. I’ll be the one wearing sunglasses at night.”

“Can I at least take my jacket?” Darren asked, still wearing rumpled bits of yesterday’s clothes. 

Chris graciously picked up the coat and handed it to him, then pulled the door open and ungraciously nudged him into the hotel hallway.

He pulled it on and leaned in to kiss Chris goodbye before he could protest. “See you tonight,” he said.

Chris stared at him for a moment. Then he said, “Bye,” and shut the door before anything else could happen.


	8. Chapter 8

**Los Angeles**

Chris was in an unusually good mood the week they filmed “The First Time.” He was a little nervous before some scenes, but it was mostly because he was afraid he might look like a cave gremlin trying and failing to be sexy on national television. The very notion of filming intimate scenes with Darren was so big and horrible and unavoidable that Chris decided to just make peace with it. It was his job. He was just doing his job. By the end of it he felt he was in a better place about the whole Darren thing. They were much more at ease with each other than they’d ever been before, mostly because Chris hadn’t said anything passive aggressive to Darren for a few weeks. He wasn’t avoiding him anymore. They laughed together between takes at how stupid and uncomfortable it all was.

“No, I mean, like really uncomfortable, like, you keep jabbing me with your elbow,” Darren said.

“Well, maybe I wouldn’t if you would stop kneeing me in the kidneys,” Chris retorted.

And maybe, best of all, Chris had a date coming up. A real, actual date with an actual guy who was actually going to take him to an actual restaurant. It wasn’t an earth shattering thing, but it was nice to be reminded he wasn’t so bitter and obnoxious that people were going to shun him forever. It was something to look forward to, a time in which he might feel normal and he’d be too busy to think about Darren. In short, he felt he had the tiniest bit of control over his life, that week.

And it was due to this recent good mood that Lea somehow convinced him to join her, Cory, and Darren at a “First Time” wrap party that only the four of them were invited to, “for obvious reasons,” Lea said. “We deserve to celebrate the end of it.”

They all left immediately from the studio on the last day, but failed to consider they would run into about a dozen cast members who would also want to go with them. First it was Kevin and Jenna. Then Darren insisted Heather come, too. At seven people strong, they sort of ran to their cars before anyone else could stop them and ask where they were going.

It was a serious accomplishment for the seven of them to go anywhere together without attracting attention, but they at least managed to not start any stampedes. It probably had something to do with the fact that they piled into a corner booth in a mostly deserted bar at 5 in the afternoon.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had alcohol while the sun was still up,” Chris said, taking a sip of the cheap beer Lea insisted everyone order.

Lea was staring at a giant, sticky menu. “Oh my God, we _have_ to order shitty bar food. I’m not going to eat it, but I kind of just want to look at it.”

“Wings,” Cory and Darren said together. In minutes three steaming platters of chicken wings adorned their table. Lea ate the decorative celery.

“Isn’t this party to celebrate the end of the sex episode?” Heather asked, slapping a wing out of Kevin’s hand and taking it for herself. “Congratulations, you’ve all had sex on TV now!”

Kevin and Jenna applauded. Lea and Chris tried to bow their gratitude.

“They didn’t actually, like, make you get naked, did they?” Kevin asked.

“Uh, it’s on Fox, not Starz,” Cory said. “I didn’t even take my shirt off.”

“I did,” Darren said.

They all stopped and stared at him for a moment. Well, not Chris. “You did?” Jenna asked.

He shook his head. “No.”

“I was wearing jeans,” Chris said. “I can’t figure it out.”

“I don’t think this actually counts as a congratulations-for-filming-sex-scenes party, then,” Jenna said. “Congratulations for filming scenes that barely imply your characters had sex?”

“We are celebrating that it’s over,” Lea clarified. “We weren’t naked, but it was just as bad for all of us as you could possibly imagine. I’m just glad we made it through.”

“Now you’re stronger than yesterday,” Kevin said.

“We’re much closer now,” Lea said, putting her head on Cory’s shoulder.

Chris nodded. “It was an awful, traumatizing bonding experience.”

“It really was,” Darren said, frowning in thought. “What am I even doing over here? I want to sit next to my boyfriend.” He stood and climbed over Heather, squeezing himself into a nonexistent spot next to Chris.

“Awww,” everyone said, including Chris. He was over being mad about it.

Darren put an arm around Chris’s waist, and Chris didn’t fail to note it wasn’t a gesture for show, because no one could see his arm beneath the table.

Chris dropped out of the conversation for a minute when his phone made a new text noise. He smiled to himself as he read it.

“What was _that_?” Lea asked loudly.

He looked up at her, a little startled. “What?”

“You just grinned at your phone like it was flirting with you. Is someone sending you flirty texts?”

Chris faltered. “I... no.”

Lea gasped like she was emerging from water. “Who is sending you flirty texts?”

He shifted his eyes. “No one.”

“What happened to Justin whatever his name was? The guy I’m barely friends with and I set you up with?”

“He was an asshole,” Chris said. That date had lasted about three minutes.

“Well, I sort of knew he was an asshole, but I thought that might be good for you.”

“What the fuck, Lea?” Darren asked, still frowning for no apparent reason and holding on to Chris’s waist. “Don’t set Chris up with assholes. He’s too nice.”

“Okay, have none of you heard the phrase ‘opposites attract?’”

“I think that means you should set him up with a cage fighter, or something,” Kevin said.

“No, not opposite professions,” Lea said. “Opposite personalities.”

“When has anyone ever had a successful relationship with an asshole?” Darren asked.

“Fine!” Lea threw her hands in the air. “So I’m bad at setting people up.”

“Really bad,” Cory nodded.

“Really, really bad,” Jenna agreed.

“Poor Chris,” Heather said.

“I’m not poor,” Chris said, smiling to himself again. “I’m perfectly fine.”

After a while, everyone decided they all needed to be drunker, especially because the sun had set and it seemed okay then. The bar filled up eventually and the music was turned up louder. The girls and Kevin took turns dancing with each other. Cory, of course, refused, and sat on the other side of Darren and Chris at the big table looking far away, his arms crossed.

Chris would have danced with any of them, but even after a couple of hours, Darren was still holding on to his waist. And now he was leaning against Chris, his head on Chris’s shoulder. He was still frowning, and Chris had a feeling he was in a bad mood and didn’t want to move. So he stayed.

They weren’t talking, either. Darren seemed lost in his own world, just like Cory did, like Chris was not really there except to be a body to lean on. All night long Darren had inched closer and closer to Chris, and when he was practically in Chris’s lap, Chris decided to try to talk to him about it. “Darren,” he said. “Are you okay?”

Darren sighed. “Yeah.”

Chris rested his cheek on Darren’s head. “Why are we cuddling in a corner booth of a bar?”

Darren shrugged. “Dunno. I’m kind of in love with you tonight.”

Chris swallowed, speechless.

“You know who I really love?” Darren asked, staring out toward the bar. “Kurt and Blaine.”

“Oh,” Chris laughed nervously. “Yeah, well, they’re cute and... perfect. Fictionally perfect. They don’t have real problems except for easily resolvable ones.”

“Maybe if we get struck by lightning we’ll switch lives and turn into them, like Freaky Friday.”

“Were they struck by lightning in Freaky Friday?” Chris asked, interested in the topic.

“No, they had some kind of head wounds or something. It doesn’t matter,” Darren said. “You know how we were lying in bed and gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes all day today?”

“Yes, and how thirty crew members with dollar signs in their eyes stared at us and periodically adjusted us.”

“I’ve never done that with anyone before.”

“Gazed lovingly into someone’s eyes?” Chris asked. “Well--” He was going to say something stupid about how Darren was young and had plenty of time to meet the right person, but stopped when Darren disentangled himself from Chris and looked at him. Really looked at him. From a startlingly close proximity.

But Darren was still frowning and squinting about something.

Chris squirmed and looked away. “It’s not working. You have to be happy.”

“Oh, yeah,” Darren said, and frowned harder, this time at the empty platter of chicken wings. “I think I’m just depressed I don’t have a soul mate.”

“You can’t possibly know that until you’re... like, dead.” Chris said. “You could meet them five minutes before you die. When you’re 90.”

Darren looked at him. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Chris shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Are you seeing anyone?” Darren asked, out of the blue. “I mean that phone thing with Lea... it was like she had a sixth sense about it.”

“Why does it matter?” Chris asked, sounding more defensive than he intended to.

Darren looked down at the table, and Chris knew he’d offended him. “I just thought you’d tell me. I thought we were friends. I thought you’d be happy to tell me.”

“I’m sorry, I just...” But Chris didn’t know how to excuse it without saying anything embarrassing or admitting he and Darren weren’t actually friends, which he didn’t actually believe was true. So he stopped talking.

“Maybe I should just go,” Darren said.

“You don’t have to,” Chris said.

“I’m going to,” Darren stood up. “Walk me to the door.”

Chris suspiciously followed him through the crowd. Lea winked at him as they passed and he rolled his eyes at her.

At the door Darren wrapped his arms around Chris’s neck and pulled him close.

“Darren,” Chris said quietly into his ear. “Don’t be sad. Don’t leave if you’re sad.”

“It’s okay,” Darren said, pulling back. “I’m fine. I just need some real food and some good movies and my bed.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded, and then, like an afterthought, kissed Chris on the cheek. “Bye,” he said.

Chris was still worried. “Bye.”

Darren was halfway out the door when he turned back and kissed him again, this time at the corner of his mouth. It didn’t actually count as a real kiss, but Chris stood frozen in moderate fear and shock anyway. Darren’s lips lingered there for a moment, at the corner of his own. Chris could feel Darren’s breath on his cheek before he pulled away again. Without a second goodbye he went out the door and disappeared into the night.

Anyone could have seen them. It could have blown up disproportionately huge in the world of celebrity gossip if even one person at that bar had seen them, or worse, taken a picture. But when Chris turned around there was no one looking at him. Everyone laughed with their friends, or tipped back shots, or yelled at the football game on the televisions. Even Cory was occupied now, being forcibly dragged to the dance floor by Lea. The bartenders wiped their glasses. The world kept turning. Darren had half kissed him in the middle of a crowded room, and no one had seen a thing.


	9. Chapter 9

**New York**

“This isn’t an automatic happy ending, you know,” Chris said over dinner that night. The bruise around his eye was purple now, instead of black. In the next couple of days it would be green. “Just because we love each other and kissed twice doesn’t mean we’re... anything.”

“Do you love me?” Darren asked. “You never actually said so.”

Chris hesitated a moment. “I just said we love each other.”

Darren thought that didn’t count, not at all, but he didn’t say anything.

“Did you ever daydream about falling in love with someone you worked with? An actor, I mean, in something you were acting in, too.”

“Not really,” Darren said.

“What about daydreams about winning big awards? Tonys and Oscars and whatever. Who would you take as your date?”

Darren put his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. He looked up to the ceiling thoughtfully. “Scarlett Johansson.”

Chris just shook his head. “I never really considered television that much, but I did always want to write and act in my own films. And I had this fantasy that I’d create the perfect character for my character to fall in love with, people who found each other despite all the odds. And the first of my films would be, like, my career defining film. First of all, because I always wanted to be young and successful at the same time. And also because I wanted to fall in love young, with the perfect person, my soul mate, and stay with that person all my life. It wouldn’t have to be a perfect relationship, but it would last all our lives. At first we’d have to keep our relationship a secret. An ‘are they or aren’t they’ kind of thing would boost interest in the film. The young and successful part of me has to remember that. And then when it inevitably swept the Oscars by winning Best Picture, and Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor, and Best Script, I’d show up on the red carpet with... that person as my date. And we’d officially announce our engagement or marriage or whatever. And of course everyone in the world would be thrilled, and there’d be no backlash whatsoever.”

“Of course not,” Darren said.

“And the reason the film would be so good is because we were falling in love while we were making it. It made us better actors. We would project love in a way very few other actors could do, because it was real.”

“I’ll go with you to the Oscars,” Darren said.

Chris shook his head. “It doesn’t work with you.”

“Why not?”

“You want to go with Scarlett Johansson. And I already made my first film. No love interest. I just die in it.”

“I was just kidding,” Darren said, but Chris just frowned at his salad. Darren nudged him with a foot under the table. “Come on, I want to go with you. You can put me in your next film. I’m free. My schedule’s wide open.”

Chris took a glum bite of lettuce. “I can’t believe you answered the phone.”

“Do you know,” Darren began, “what all my friends and family would say if I called them and told them I’m in love with you and we’re... toeing the precipice of a relationship?”

“It’s about fucking time?” Chris ventured.

“Exactly. You are exactly right. But if you asked me a week ago what I thought they’d say if I told them that, I would have said they’d be shocked. I would’ve said they would probably all die of shock.”

“So, what changed?”

“Seeing you all beat up and sad, I guess. Well, you’re always sad, but... I realized you’re not immortal like I thought you were.”

Chris choked back a laugh. “You thought I was immortal?”

“I just thought you would always be there. Here. Somewhere near me. In perfect condition, with the perfectly funny thing to say at the perfect time. But you’re not going to be, if I don’t give you a reason to stay. If you didn’t have all those bruises, Kurt and Blaine would be breaking up in Battery Park right now. And I’m sure we’ll have to film something again together, but... what if it isn’t for months? What if the breakup really meant we were done working together, forever? I could lose you without ever actually confronting how I feel about you. I totally took everything for granted. I just thought working with you fifteen hours a day, grabbing coffee after work, all of that would last forever.”

“We’d still go to the same events and interviews.”

“Where you would ignore me as best as you could, like always.”

Chris pushed his salad around on the plate. “I just don’t want people talking about us. That’s why... a real, public relationship between us would never work. People would pick us apart and spread rumors and scrutinize us to death, until we were forced to break up. People are too mean for my dream to come true. I wouldn’t even want to try... I respect you too much to put you through that.”

“So you want to hide this from people forever?” Darren asked.

“Kind of,” Chris said. “Yes. I don’t even know what this is, but, to protect it, yes.”

“What about our parents?”

Chris smiled. “You want to tell your parents?”

“Yes, and, like, ten friends. Maybe eleven. But that’s it.”

He thought about it. “As long as you trust them.”

“What about the super distant future? What if we last ten years, and it works perfectly, despite our busy schedules and that we spend most days in different parts of the world?”

“I can be very endearing over the phone,” Chris said.

“Can we tell people then?”

“In ten years? Yes, we can tell the whole world in ten years, but if you do it on a stage in front of thousands of people who are filming it for Youtube, without telling me first, I will literally shoot you.”

“Deal.”

“But before you tell your parents and eleven more friends, can you give us a week? We need to figure out what’s actually happening. We need to see what’s going to happen. We need to see if this will even work.”

“But I go back to L.A. in three days, and you stay here.”

Chris shrugged. “It’ll be good practice for real life. And I’m coming back too, a week or so later.”

“So we’ll see each other again?”

“We will always see each other again,” he promised.

Darren smiled. “Can I impose upon you to spend the night in your room again? I can’t promise immense sexual satisfaction, but...”

“I don’t want immense sexual satisfaction right now,” Chris said. “I feel like all the bones in my body are broken.”

“I just slept really good last night. No dreams, it was just black. Isn’t that a good thing? Or is that a bad thing? Now I can’t remember.”

“They do call me Chris ‘Nyquil’ Colfer. You know, on the streets.”

“I don’t mean you were boring, I mean being in your presence is like being knocked out. In a good way. Only at bed time.”

“Okay, stop trying to clarify.”

“Okay.”

They walked back to the hotel arm in arm. Chris said he had to hold Darren’s arm for medical reasons, specifically that he was still limping and might fall. Darren asked why, in that case, didn’t they just take a cab back to the hotel. But Chris just gave him a look.

The city was pretty at night, and not too hot despite they were there late into summer. It was late enough at night that the sidewalks were relatively uncrowded. It was almost romantic.

“If you see Ryan, jump in front of a bus to distract him while I run away before he realizes I don’t have food poisoning,” Chris said.

“Anything for you,” Darren said.

They stayed up for a few hours in bed, watching risque period dramas on HBO and vaguely lamenting their career choices. Chris fell asleep first, his head slowly and subconsciously tilting toward Darren until he was snoring softly into Darren’s t-shirt.


	10. Chapter 10

**Los Angeles**

“This is truly disgusting,” Chris said after recovering from a minor coughing fit. “I mean, it actually tastes like I’m being stabbed.”

“Whatever, I thought it was festive,” Darren shrugged. “It’s tequila, it’s festive.”

“I thought people only drink tequila in Mexican restaurants.”

Darren stared at him gravely.

“Don’t look at me like that, I don’t know. I don’t anything about the world, I’m very sheltered. Oh, Christ, is this the thing with the worm in it?”

“Yeah, it’s disgusting, look,” Darren handed him the bottle. Chris stared into the bottom of it, eyes wildly searching, terrified. He didn’t see anything. He looked back to Darren, who just sat there, smiling.

Chris set the bottle down carefully. “Fine,” he said. “You got me.”

They were sitting at Darren’s dining room table three days after Christmas. It was that awkward time between Christmas and the new year, and as such, it felt like almost everyone they knew was out of town. Darren’s apartment was empty except for them, and, from what Chris gathered, that didn’t happen very often.

Darren pulled a package from the floor beneath the table, comically producing a present like he was in a cartoon and pulled it out of his back pocket. Chris never saw it coming. “I got you something,” Darren said. “Don’t fight it.”

“But we said we weren’t getting each other anything,” Chris protested.

“I lied.”

“But I didn’t get you anything,” Chris pouted, digging into his bag, “except this.” He slid a present across the table to Darren.

“See, you lied, too.”

“Always come prepared,” Chris said. “I would have kept it for myself if you didn’t give me something first.”

“No wonder you brought that giant man bag,” Darren said, eying the 12x12” square gift.

“Pretend you can’t tell exactly what it is by its shape.”

Darren raised his eyebrows. “Is it a bow tie with tiny Christmas trees on it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m opening it.” Darren began ripping the paper off, and Chris opened his too, but more carefully. Darren ogled his shiny new record and then looked at Chris, smiling at his gift. “It’s one of those fancy fountain pens. I’d always heard they existed, but I never saw one until I went looking for one for you. Now you have to go to a department store downtown to buy ink to refill it, which probably costs like a thousand dollars, but I thought--”

“It’s really beautiful,” Chris cut him off, barely listening. He practically had stars in his eyes while he looked at it.

“I thought it would be a good thing to give a writer. I mean, I know you just type everything on your laptop but...”

“As a writer I appreciate nice office supplies more than the average person,” Chris assured him. “And I do write on paper, sometimes.”

“Good,” Darren smiled.

There was a pause while Chris, caught up in the pen, forgot for a moment to explain Darren’s record. “Oh!” he said eventually. “I... don’t have a very good story for that. Musicians like records, or so I’ve heard. I hope you have a record player, although if you don’t, I will never take you seriously as a songwriter again.”

“Please,” Darren said, crossing the room and unsheathing the record. “I have three.”

“Anyway, it’s Solomon Burke,” Chris said as Darren put the record on. “I’m going through a blues/R&B/soul phase--”

“As anyone could tell just by looking at you.”

“--And like to push my interests on my friends. This record is my current favorite. I found it old and used, but you can’t even tell.”

“No scratches,” Darren agreed.

Chris shrugged and looked at his glass of tequila, thinking about trying it again. “They called him the king of rock and soul.”

“I love it,” Darren said, rejoining him at the table. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, too,” Chris said. “It was really thoughtful of you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, and waited a moment before changing the subject. “Chris?”

“Yes?”

“Remember the last time I asked you about your love life and you yelled at me?”

Chris rubbed an eyebrow, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”

“As your friend, I have to keep an eye out for you. So I wanted to warn you I might ask about it again, so please don’t yell at me.”

He smiled. “I won’t. We can talk about it.”

Darren took a swig of tequila before asking, without looking Chris in the eyes. “Are you seeing anyone?”

Chris sighed. “I had a few dates with someone.”

“Who?”

“He works on another show.”

“An actor?”

“God, no,” Chris frowned. “He’s, like, a lighting assistant of some kind. We kept running into each other on the lot when I had downtime and... I don’t know. He was always really nice.”

“Nice,” Darren repeated.

“Yes, that’s always my favorite and most sought after quality. Niceness. Anyway, we went to dinner a few times, we saw a play, we went to a couple of movies. But it’s over now.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Chris said, turning his glass in circles and staring at it intently, “he stopped answering his phone and won’t return any of my calls.”

“That’s not very nice,” Darren pointed out.

“I suppose it could be that he’s really busy around the holidays, possibly out of town. But I doubt it. I’m just not...” he didn’t know what to say.

“You’re not what? Of course you’re good enough, you’re too good for most people,” Darren said.

“No, I know. I’m just not... right... for... most people.”

“Why not?”

“I’m just too much. My crazy life, the Glee thing, the fact that I’m always writing, that I’m usually never home. And what about the fact that I’m always looking for the perfect person? My soul mate. And most of the people I’ve met in L.A. want significantly less than that.”

“I am, too,” Darren said. He was listening to Chris kind of dreamily, with his head in his hand. “Not as diligently as you, sometimes I just don’t care, but most of the time I do.”

“And, worst of all, I never make the first move. I would wait forever for someone else to ask me out first, or kiss me first, or do everything first.”

“I bet you would if it was the right person. If you knew you found who you’ve always been looking for, you wouldn’t just let him get away.”

Chris frowned. “I might.”

“You would do anything not to lose him.”

“Are you telling me I should keep calling the lighting guy?”

“Not even a little bit. Fuck him.”

Chris gave him a look.

“No, I mean _fuck him_ , he’s worthless.”

“Maybe,” Chris said, and shifted the focus away from himself. “What about your love life? How’s it going?”

“That is not at all what this conversation is about,” Darren answered.

“Oh,” Chris said with raised eyebrows. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Darren shook his head at himself, at his own rudeness. “I just mean, if anything worthwhile happens, I promise I’ll tell you all about it.”

Chris looked back to his glass. “Are you dating anyone?”

“I guess. Yes. A girl,” he said. Obviously.

“I think you should marry Dianna,” Chris said.

“No, Heather.”

They looked at each other and laughed. But Chris still looked sad, and Darren could see it. He pulled his chair to Chris’s and pulled him into a hug. The music played softly in the background. Chris closed his eyes and hid his face in Darren’s neck.

“Don’t be sad,” Darren told him, quietly into his ear.

“I’m not,” he said, but he was, and it almost seemed like Darren knew why. Like Darren could see right through him. He felt more hopeless than ever.

Darren pulled away first, and clinked his glass against Chris’s. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”


	11. Chapter 11

**New York**

Chris bounced nervously that night in Battery Park. He had healed sufficiently well and makeup had hidden all the remaining traces of bruising around his eye. He watched Cory and Lea filming a certain distance in front of himself and Darren, waiting his turn to walk up and down the sidewalk about a hundred times and pretend to be dumped.

Darren was watching the little spattering of fans who sat on the grass nearby and filmed them with their cameras and phones. “What should I do to get rid of them?” he asked a different way for the third time. “I know I said I’d go kick them, but I don’t really want to hurt them. I could kick the cameras out of their hands. Maybe they’d land on the pavement and break.”

“You should just pee on them,” Chris said offhandedly, not even really listening to himself.

Darren stared at him. “What is wrong with you?”

“Well, they’d run away in terror,” he mumbled.

“Maybe we should go autograph shit for them. Would they leave if we autographed stuff for them and then waved goodbye, and kept saying ‘bye!’ really enthusiastically? It would be like a Jedi mind trick.”

“I think that’s just called the power of persuasion, it’s not supernatural. And no, it wouldn’t work.” Chris turned to look at him for the first time in a while. He really did look shaken up. “Just try to relax.”

Darren blinked at him. “You don’t look very good, yourself.”

Chris turned away and hoped he didn’t look caught. “I’m having a weird night.”

Someone yelled at them to take their places. Darren didn’t have time to ask Chris about his weird night, and even if he did have time, he couldn’t in front of all the people surrounding them while they worked.

And so they filmed the scene that would end the relationship that was the reason they ever met in the first place. That relationship was the reason Darren was given a place on the show, and now he was probably going to be featured more often than Chris would be. Darren felt kind of mean, all of a sudden, when it hit him.

Except for a couple of distractions and malfunctions, a necessary evil when shooting on a live set, the scene was finished relatively quickly. It was almost like they could have been filming anything. It was almost like it didn’t matter. They laughed, they fake-cried, whatever. They were professionals.

Lea bounced over to them at the end of the night. “Are you feeling better, Chris?”

“What?” he asked.

She smiled. “Your food poisoning?”

“Oh,” Chris said. “Yes, I’m fine now.”

“Have you gotten over the initial shock and sadness of this script?” Lea changed the subject. “You know it isn’t going to last very long.”

“I think it’s statistically impossible that two relationships coming out of the same high school will make it in real life,” Chris said.

“Oh my God,” Darren said, realizing it suddenly. “Finn and Rachel are the pet soul mates of the show. We really are never getting back together.”

Lea laughed like he was joking. “Don’t worry, it’s not real life. It’s the magic of television! Statistics don’t count.”

Chris mumbled something and wandered away, which he was sometimes apt to do. Lea tried to get Darren to explain in great detail the personalities and looks of all the new actors, waiting back in L.A. to replace them, but he didn’t feel like talking about it. He was grateful when Cory joined them, already out of wardrobe, and distracted her.

“I’ll be right back,” Darren told them, without really intending to come back. They weren’t listening to him anyway.

He went to one of the trailers they used to change their clothes and found Chris alone, sitting at a mirror, wiping away concealer from his bruised eye. The makeup artist who applied it earlier was sworn to secrecy via pinky swear, so no one knew about it but the three of them.

Chris looked at Darren sideways and sighed. He dropped a disposable, makeup stained cloth into the garbage. “What if it doesn’t work?” he asked.

“What if what doesn’t work?”

“Us.”

“We can’t know what will happen in the future. You can’t worry about it now.” Darren realized then that Chris had about half of his makeup still on, and that he was still wearing those atrocious red pants, but with his own shirt. It was like talking to someone who was half Chris and half Kurt Hummel. And then he looked down at himself, still decked out one hundred percent as Blaine, and wondered if maybe they were both completely unhinged.

“I’m still not convinced you’re not temporarily insane,” Chris said, reading his mind. “When you get back to real life you’ll...” he trailed off.

Darren crossed his arms. “What will I do?”

Chris shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t, you can only know what you’re going to do. What will you do, when you go back to real life?”

“I don’t have a real life.”

Darren smiled at him. “Of course you do. You’re going to film and film, and write novels, and invent new things to film and write, and you’re going to work every day until your fingers fall off and your eyes fall out. You will continue to be successful, every day, and if, at night, you’re awake enough to function, you can call me. I’ll be around. I’ll cook you a mediocre dinner, or take you to the movies, or talk to you on the phone all night, or text you all night, or leave you alone, if that’s what you want.”

“That’s not what I want, I want all the other things.”

“I’ll always be around for you, whenever you have time for me. As long as you give me a two week notice,” he added quickly at the end, like fine print. “Otherwise I’ll always be around for you, via technology. No matter what.”

“I know,” Chris said. “You’re reliable. That’s why I texted you a few nights ago. You came to get me even though I’m always mean to you.”

“Not always,” Darren replied. “And anyway, I hope you don’t think I actually believed your story. Maybe you were mugged, but what were you doing in that weird part of town in the first place?”

Chris didn’t answer right away, so Darren went on.

“You just called me because I’m stupid and you thought I wouldn’t ask.”

“Oh, shut up. You’re not stupid. I know someone who lives out there...”

“You do not.”

Chris glared at him.

“Maybe you do,” Darren shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me. I keep going back and forth between thinking you were trying to buy drugs and thinking you were trying to find a prostitute, but either way it doesn’t seem right.”

Chris laughed, but didn’t clarify anything for him. He rubbed his eye. “I do love you, you know. Of course I do.”

“I know.”

“But I still don’t know if we’re setting ourselves up for the greatest romance of the century or just a really clingy, unhealthy friendship.”

Darren smiled at him. “I don’t know, either. Probably the latter.”

Chris sighed. “Sucks we broke up tonight,” he paused. “Kurt and Blaine, I mean.”

“Oh,” Darren laughed. “I almost forgot.”


End file.
